Still and all, why bother? Here's my answer. Many people need desperately to receive this message: I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone. --Vonnegut

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Evolution: The Disguised Friend of Faith?

I stumbled upon this and thought some of my theistic readers might be interested.

Although I obviously don't agree with his religious beliefs, I admire his advocacy of critical religious thinking.

An excerpt:

My conviction has long been that critical religious thinking is most vital and creative when it faces the challenge of new ideas and new cultural settings. This has been especially true of Christian theology. One has only to think of

the opening out of the Gospel from its Jewish setting into thewider Gentile world, as recounted and exemplified in the New Testament (the Acts of the Apostles and the various epistles, especially of St. Paul);

the Patristic period when the Greek fathers met and overcame the challenge of neo-Platonic philosophy;

and St. Thomas Aquinas reshaping theology when Aristotle’s comprehensive scientific and philosophical works came to Europe via Islam.

Today, the pervading of all our thinking and action by the sciences constitutes the sharpest challenge to the beliefs of traditional Christianity and of other religions. This has been a preoccupation of mine since my schooldays when my incipient and ill-informed faith encountered the evidence for evolution and initiated my own long trail of integrating evolution with a transformed articulation of Christian belief. The working out of these issues has been a leitmotif underlying not only my own personal quest but also expressed in my published books on the wider interactions of science and Christian theology.

...

The word “evolution” evokes a negative reaction in only some Christian quarters—but mercifully and certainly, globally, not in most. For, not very long after Darwin produced his evidence of a plausible mechanism (natural selection) for that transformation of species which the fossil record and his researches then indicated, leading Christian thinkers in his own country were welcoming his concept of the evolution of the living world and integrating it with their understanding both of divine creation and incarnation. It is the remark, quoted* after the title page, of one of these, Aubrey Moore, that is referred to in the title of this book—the question mark indicating that there is indeed a proper question needing honestly to be pursued with intellectual integrity.

The essays collected here in part 1 represent my thinking about the theological issues raised by the now completely and scientifically well-established evolution of living organisms in the natural world; and, in part 2, about how human beings should now begin to regard themselves and their own presence in the world in relation to the God creating in and through evolution. As a kind of reflection in the mirror of awareness of the created, natural processes of evolution, our thinking about God has itself “evolved” (in the sense of “unfolded”) concomitantly with the reconsideration of nature and humanity stimulated by this awareness, and the essays in part 3 are concerned with this reshaping of belief. An epilogue recalls an earlier, medieval figure in English theology, Robert Grosseteste, from whose wisdom concerning education about the relation of nature, humanity, and God we can still learn much.

This book, along with all my other writings, is based on the presupposition that what the sciences tell us is true about nature cannot, in the long run, falsify what is true about human relationships to God. Indeed, because the world is created by God, knowledge through science of the world must enhance and clarify and, if need be, correct our understanding of God and of God’s relation to the creation, including humanity.

*He's referring to the remark quoted on the title page of the essay:

Science had pushed the deist’s God farther and farther away, and at the moment when it seemed as if He would be thrust out altogether, Darwinism appeared, and, under the disguise of a foe, did the work of a friend. It has conferred upon philosophy and religion an inestimable benefit, by showing us that we must choose between two alternatives. Either God is everywhere present in nature, or He is nowhere. —Aubrey Moore, "The Christian Doctrine of God."

The originators and developers of the theory of evolution were all atheists and agnostics and probably 98% of atheists and agnostics today are evolutionists. It is an atheist creation myth, accepted by some religious people who are duped into believing it is science.

Let's face it. They're morons. There are a whole lot of them. And they vote.

A lot of them just don't know. It's not like they're getting good science educations in school.

jewish philosopher:

The originators and developers of the theory of evolution were all atheists

It's true that Darwin and Wallace were either atheists or pretty close to it at the times they came up with their theories of evolution.

probably 98% of atheists and agnostics today are evolutionists

This is undoubtedly true as well, at least in America, but it supports evolution more than in casts doubt upon it. If evolution were merely some made-up explanation, why wouldn't atheists and agnostics be more divided on the issue? Why wouldn't some believe in some other non-supernatural "myth?" Is it a big consipracy? Other than the God issue, there's probably nothing else that 98% of atheists and agnostics agree on. In fact, pretty much the ONLY people who doubt evolution are Biblical literalists, whose beliefs preclude them from accepting it.

It is an atheist creation myth, accepted by some religious people who are duped into believing it is science.

Here's where you go wrong. What you call "some religious people who are duped" make up about half of America. The overwhelming majority of Americans who believe in evolution are religious. It's disingenuous to make it sound like evolution is primarily an atheistic theory.

To sum up, in America, the only people who don't believe in evolution believe in Biblical literalism. Neither atheists, agnostics, nor Christians/Jews who interpret the Bible along less literal lines, disbelieve in evolution. It seems to me that bias is indeed a factor, but only for people who insist on Biblical literalism.